Maccabi Canada stalwart and former president Roy Salomon and Maccabi USA president Robert Spivak have been named honorary co-chairs of the 2013 Maccabiah Games in Israel.
The announcement was made at a recent meeting in Israel of the Maccabi movement’s oversight body, the Maccabi World Union (MWU).
“We felt very honoured,” the ever-energetic Salomon, 73, told The CJN. “This is a very, very special thing.”
For years, Salomon and Spivak, who are good friends, worked as a tandem team in charge of putting together the North American (Canadian and U.S.) part of the Games.
The appointment capped more than 40 years of involvement by Salomon in the Maccabi movement, beginning in 1969 when he was a member of the Canadian men’s basketball team.
His positions with Maccabi Canada since then, the Maccabi Canada website says, have included chair of the national athletic committee (NAC) from 1981 to 1985, Team Canada chef de mission for the 1997 and 2001 Games, and Maccabi Canada president from 1993 to 2001. He is currently honorary president.
After the Yarkon River bridge collapse during the opening of the 1997 Maccabiah, Salomon played a key role in mediating relations between Australia, which lost four team members in the accident, and Israel.
Salomon also led the Canadian delegation at the 1982 JCC Maccabi Games, was Maccabi Canada’s representative to those Games in the 1990s, and was the MWU delegate at meetings of the World Zionist Organization.
In addition, in 1995, Salomon was inducted into the Montreal Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, and in 2001, he was recognized with the Maccabi movement’s prestigious Yakir Award.
“You know, it’s very, very important for me to stay active,” Salomon said. “It has to do with what it always had to do with: kids and Judaism.
“The bottom line is that [in the Maccabiah context], sports has always been a means to an end, to give kids a sense of pride in who they are in terms of Judaism, Israel and as future leaders.”
